Cyber Imprints

Facebook is continuously adding new things on its interface and features. The most popular feature that was added lately was the VideoChat. A friend of mine already used the Video Chat feature of Facebook to chat with her friends abroad.

Now, I noticed another new thing when I made my usual visit to my Facebook account. Here is what I saw:

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Please click on the photo to see a better view of the image.

Facebook added a widget to the right side of my Facebook "Home" page. The widget shows the latest updates from my contacts in Facebook. The widget is being updated in real-time.

If you click on one of your friend's updates on the widget, you will see this:

The status update will expand to show you the whole thread. Using this feature, you can easily comment on the thread without the to look for it one your FB Home page.

This new feature of Facebook is pretty neat because you can see the updates from your friends in real-time. It will also be helpful for the FB users to see friend's updates that were already buried by loads of other FB statuses and updates on your FB page.

Their is only something that makes me think with this new feature of Facebook. It looks very similar with Twitter.

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Visit Before the Eastern Sunset and read about the State of the Soul of the Nation Address.

False news spread like wildfire last weekend when a website published a false article quoting Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, saying that he will be shutting Facebook down on March 15.

I totally missed this news and wouldn’t have known about it if not a friend of mine posted a blog about it.

The hoax started from Weekly World News, wherein they alleged that Zuckerberg said:

“Facebook has gotten out of control,” said Zuckerberg in a press conference outside his Palo Alto office, “and the stress of managing this company has ruined my life. I need to put an end to all the madness.”

The article continued by saying that Zuckerberg will start shutting Facebook down by March 15.
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The article would largely be ignored if people, alarmed by the hoax, did not post the false news on Facebook and Twitter.  People became so alarmed that some of them posted questions at
Yahoo Answers.

No, Facebook will not shut down in March 15. If Zuckerberg is tired of Facebook, then he could just sell it. Facebook is a multi-billion business and many people are aching to purchase it from the Facebook founder. If he wants, then he could allow me to manage it. :-D
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Facebook already has more than 200 million users worldwide. Because of this, marketers and businesses have Facebook accounts to take advantage of its wide exposure. Bloggers should also take advantage of the exposure that Facebook has to offer. All serious bloggers should open an account in Facebook, not only for exposure, but also for added interactivity with your visitors. Another reason is that Facebook have a great number of potential readers that you could tap to go visit your blogs.

I, for one, already have a Facebook account and I can say that it helped me reach to out to more people and gave me better connection with other bloggers. Facebook has many tools that could help a blogger reach his/her audience. One tool that I use is the NetworkedBlogs.

NetworkedBlogs is Facebook Application (App) that is useful for bloggers. It is useful because NetworkedBlogs allows your blog to be included in the NetworkedBlogs network of blogs that could be seen by hundreds of Facebook users.

The advantage of this is that your blog may be followed by any Facebook user even if you are not friends. This is great because you can promote your blog in Facebook, not only to your friends or Facebook contacts, but also those people who want to follow your blog without necessarily inviting you to be their friend in Facebook.

This advantage of NetworkedBlogs is made possible by the badge that you can place on your blog. Here is the sample of a NetworkedBlogs badge I placed on my persona-travel blog:

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By clicking the NetworkedBlogs badge, visitors of your blog will be able to receive the updates from your blogs on their Facebook account without them inviting you as their contact in Facebook.

So, what are you waiting for? Go no to NetworkedBlogs and have your blogs listed in their network. Don’t forget to place a NetworkedBlogs badge on your blog so that visitors and blog readers will be able to receive real-time updates on their Facebook.

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Social Media sites are websites that allows the subscribers or members of that website to socialize with one another through the sharing of comments, pictures, videos, and other online interactive activities. There are numerous social media websites that are present in the World Wide Web. Each of these websites caters to various groups and has their own strengths and weaknesses. Some of social media websites that I encountered through the years are Friendster, Facebook, Twitter, Multiply, Yahoo 360, and Plurk.

Social Media Optimization, or SMO, is the process of creating awareness of your blog through the use of social media websites. It is opposed to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that focuses more on increasing the rank of a blog in search engines. Because of the continued prominence of social media websites, successful bloggers utilized them to promote their blogs and reach out to more readers.

I also use SMO to promote my blog posts. The social media websites that I currently use for my SMO are Facebook, Twitter, and Friendster. Prominent bloggers already attested the effectiveness of Facebook and Twitter as SMO tool. I have not seen any review for Friendster.

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Friendster is one of the leading social websites in the Philippines and it still boasts of thousands of active Filipino users. Though, many of its veteran members shifted to Facebook. I observed that very few bloggers use Friendster as a blogging tool. 

The main page that is fronted to other Friendster users is the Profile page. This page contains the self-description of the Friendster user and the comments made by his/her friends. The profile page is the main page where a blogger can leave links leading to his/her blog. Bloggers could also use the Friendster bulletin for blog promotion.

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Facebook picked up the comment elements of Friendster and expanded it. Interactivity in Facebook is through posts that are posted by the Facebook user and is visible to all of his/her friend’s Facebook main page. His/her post can be commented by his/her friends and the comments are showed in a nested form. This ingenious mode in Facebook promotes online conversation because commenters reply to one another.

Facebook is more blogger friendly because it is easy to post links that lead to your blogs. An added bonus is the use of Networked Blogs that automatically pull your blog post and is ready to be posted on Facebook.

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Twitter is almost similar with Facebook in that it also uses the posting system that could be found in Facebook. The main difference is that you are limited to 140 characters (space included) for your posts or more popularly known as tweets. This limitation is not a disadvantage though because many people subscribed for this websites and that includes successful bloggers. Leaving a tweet could even be made through SMS messaging of mobile phones.

Of the three social media websites that I used, Friendster is the least effective, which is followed by Twitter. The most effective is Facebook. Friendster contributed 17% of the readers coming from social media sites, while Twitter contributed 33%. Facebook, meanwhile, contributed 50% of the visitors.

This simple statistics only shows that Friendster is not a good platform for social media optimization. The possible cause of this is that the facilities where I place links to my blogs is usually ignored by Friendster users. Whatever the reason, it only means that Friendster has to redefine itself to be more blogger friendly.

For better social media optimization, I suggest that you both use Facebook and Twitter. These two websites were somehow compatible with one another. An example of this compatibility is a Facebook application that posts your tweets on your Facebook wall. 

You can stay away from Friendster when doing social media optimization and you will not be missing anything.

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For more information on how to use Friendster as a blogging tool please read “How to Get Inbound Links to our Blog.”

Further comparison of Facebook and Friendster could be found at my article “Facebook vs Friendster.”

Logos of Facebook, Friendster, and witter are under the copyright of their respective owners.

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The chat box is one of the cool features of Facebook. Once you are logged-in in your Facebook account, you could send and receive instant message from your contacts and friends. And just like other chat boxes, like in Gmail and Yahoo Messenger, Facebook chat can also use chat emoticons or smileys. Facebook chat emoticons are not just ordinary smilies. Facebook has a load of cute chat emoticons that you could use to spice up your chat or you could use to amaze your friends.

Some of the Facebook chat emoticons that are available are the usual emoticons like the :-), :-(, and :-P. A variety of Facebook chat emoticons can also be used and some of them are animals like the penguin and shark.

Here are some Facebook chat emoticons:

I just came across this list of Facebook emoticons on one of my friend’s Facebook wall. It is good to use, especially, to “WOW” your friends.

So, what could you say about the Facebook chat emoticons? They are quite cool right? Now is the time to amaze your friends. And while you are at it, add me as your friend in Facebook.

For more Facebook chat emoticons, go to this website.

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In the previous post, I talked about some ways to ensure the safety of your Facebook account from hackers and identity thieves. Now, we will talk about some things that a Facebook user should/must not do on their Facebook accounts.

As the Facebook increases its popularity in the Philippines, peculiar news related to this social networking site are becoming more common. I heard of a news report of a woman who complained to the police that someone is scattering her naked photos online. She admitted that she uploaded her naked photos so that her foreigner friend in Facebook could see it.

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There other news like that and many of those incidents could have been avoided if they just followed these tips:

News today is abuzz with a certain Mai Mislang, who is a speechwriter of President Noynoy Aquino. Mislang was in hot water after posting tweets that takes pun of Vietnam during the president’s state visit at that country. Mislang’s tweet not only shamed herself but also shamed the president, who is now out defending her.

What happened to Mai Mislang is also applicable to all Facebook users. Never post status or comments that you will be ashamed of in the future. Never post status or comments that is incriminating and might be used to sue you.

Before posting anything, always think what your love ones or even your children (or grandchildren) will think of you once they read those posts.

I talked about a certain woman who is now ashamed because somebody is scattering her naked photos in the Internet. The rule of the thumb is to never upload any of your private photos in Facebook, especially those photos that shows you naked or doing private “activities.”

Facebook may have security features that you could use to restrict the persons that could view your private or naked photos. However, always remember that there are times when bugs and other problems arise in Facebook that could disable these security features and will leave your private or naked photos exposed to the public.

There are so many applications in Facebook. Some offer fun games and other give perks to the users of that application. There is catch with those applications, however, because these applications will always require you to let the application access all of your personal information, even those that are protected by security settings.

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Be wary of these Facebook applications because phishers use these applications to gather personal and private information and sell those information to interested buyers.

Join Facebook just for the fun of it and don’t place detailed information of your life there. In the address info, placing your current city and country would be enough. Don’t place your full address. 

Facebook may require you to place your cellphone number and e-mail address. That is fine because that is a requirement, but you must make sure to adjust your privacy settings so as to keep those information from being seen be people other than your friends.

Also, don’t overshare information. Your contacts or friends might want to know your thoughts or what you are doing, but I guess it is not ok to put in Facebook that you are in the CR and defecating. You should also remember that your Facebook wall is open to all of your Facebook contacts. Never post anything that is just intended for a few people. You could always use private messaging for those things.

Many people became victims of criminals in Facebook because they are too trusting. Wake up! Their many posers and pretenders in Facebook. The profile picture that you will see may not be the actual person who owns the Facebook account. Many sexual predators befriend women and children in Facebook and lure them into meeting up with them.

Be careful with the people you meet in Facebook. Don’t give your 100% trust to anyone in Facebook if you just met or befriended that person in Facebook.

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These are just few things that you should not do on Facebook. Of course, there is so much more things that you should avoid. If you have more of these things in mind, don’t hesitate to leave a comment.

Noise to Signal Cartoon came from GetElastic.

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That statement surprised me because even simple people in the Philippines are already hooked up with Facebook. Now, the trend is the continuous rise on the number of Filipinos opening an account on Facebook and it is estimated that the trend will continue in the coming years. In the Internet shops in my village, I noticed that people are giving more time to the Internet (specifically Facebook) than the popular online games.

The rise of the number of Filipino Facebook users also lead to an increase of identity theft and account hacking. I have seen many news items about it and many people are unaware how to protect their Facebook accounts.

Keeping your Facebook account from being hacked is easy and there are simple ways that you could do to prevent it.

A small check box (with the label “Keep me logged in”) could be found below the “email” field. Make sure that you had it unchecked before logging in to your account. You must do this precautionary measure whenever you are using other people’s computer, or a shared computer, or when you are surfing in an Internet café.

If you keep the box checked, then your account will not be logged off even if you close the browser or even if you turn the computer off.

Aside from unchecking the box, you must also make sure that your browser is not saving your login information.

Hackers can do many things when they know some of your personal information, specifically your email address. By default, Facebook displays most of your personal information on your Facebook profile publicly. Everyone, even those who are not on your friends’ list, can see your e-mail address.

To restrict people from seeing your personal information, you must heighten your privacy settings. You could do this by clicking on the “Privacy Settings” link, which could be found on the “Account” tab on the upper right corner of your Facebook page.

The “Privacy Settings” link will take you to a page that lets you control what information you want to be shared publicly, to your friends only, or just known only to you.

Aside from auto-saving, browsers also store the history of the pages you viewed while surfing the Internet. So, when using Facebook, it is advisable that you clear browsing history and private data before leaving the computer shop.

For Firefox, click Tools >> Clear Private Data. A window will pop up and will ask you what information you want to be cleared. For Internet Explorer, you should click Tools >> Delete Browsing History. For Google Chrome, click the wrench symbol found on the upper right corner of the Google Chrome Window and then click Options. A window will pop out on which you should click the Under the Hood Tab and click on “Clear browsing data...” button.

I have a friend on Facebook who wants to give her password to me so that I could manage her account whenever she is not online. I did not accede to what she wants and told her not to give her login information to anyone.

Your Facebook account is your personal page and you should be the only one who could access it.

This is the most obvious way of preventing your Facebook account from being hacked. However, I have encountered in many Internet cafes that some people forget to log off their accounts.

Remember that turning off the browser is not an assurance that your Facebook account will be logged out. Always make sure that you log off your Facebook account.

When creating a password for your Facebook account, it is better that you use both numbers and letters; and capital and non-capital letters. This will make your password hard to be guessed by would be hackers. 

Also, create different passwords for your different accounts. Use different passwords for your Facebook, e-mail, Twitter, etc. so that if one of your accounts was compromised then your other accounts will be safe.

If you doubt that your Facebook account was compromised, then you should change your password immediately. It is better to be sure that your Facebook account was safe than otherwise.

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So there you have it, some of the tips that you could use to protect your Facebook account. If you have more tips, then please leave a comment.

I also wrote an article related to this in Ahab Reviews and Tips, which give tips on how to prevent identity theft when surfing in an Internet cafe.

As a blogger and as an Internet addict, I have many accounts on many social networking sites. I have an account in Twitter, Facebook, Multiply, Friendster, and Plurk, not to mention my e-mail addresses and other website for blogging and other activities. The sheer number of accounts is overwhelming especially if you are like me who have two accounts for Facebook and Friendster and four e-mail addresses. I have a personal account and an account for blogging in Facebook. I have an e-mail for blogging, an e-mail for work, and another e-mail address for personal matters.

Managing these accounts poses some problems and one of these problems is if you want to open those accounts simultaneously. In your browser (be it Firefox, Chrome, or Internet Explorer), you can only open one Facebook, for example. Even if you open another tab, it would only show the account

So how can you open your multiple accounts simultaneously?

The only trick is to have more than browser in your computer.

I, for instance, have two browsers in my computer. These are Firefox and Google Chrome. I open one of my Facebook and e-mail accounts in one browser and then I open my other accounts in Firefox.

There are also other browsers out there if you want to open three, four, or higher number of accounts simultaneously. All you have to do is to download those browsers. Here are the browsers that I usually use (click on the link to go to the download page): Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera.

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Found this post informative, helpful or quite the opposite? Please leave your thoughts. You can also ask me questions through my comment box.